Monday, 31 October 2011

Nearly-night swimming

Interesting to note: One of my fave UK lidos –
Penzance - is also called Jubilee. YAAAWWNNN.

Added bonus: Indoor sunbathing

Negative (for me): Men’s changing is better than
women’s.

I’ll clarify that negative immediately before you
start getting ideas: I went to this pool with my friend Adam, who took the task
of assessing the men’s changing rooms very seriously. ‘I tried out the
hairdryer on your behalf’ he said ‘and I think your readers will be pleased to
know it works’. Adam reported that the men’s changing area was extremely nice,
very well tiled, clean, and with plenty of ‘gunk’ in the showers. I think he
meant shower gel. I hope he meant shower gel. Adam reckons that of all the
local authority pools he’s visited, these changing rooms are the best; however,
he recommends you (men) wait a few weeks before visiting, until they have the
lockers sorted, as he had to carry his work suit round after swimming and it
got wet. Fortunately it was dark when we walked back to the tube so no one
could see his damp bits.

The women’s changing rooms were not so good. Right by
the door is a stack of small metal cages of the sort they keep laboratory animals
in. Then, a complete higgle piggle of bits of room and steps and wall and
benches and small lockers (only take a narrow bag). The showers seemed
relatively new, in that bluey-green frosted glass of about five years ago, but
the door to mine kept swinging open. The loos – it was the end of the day –
looked like a party of school children had been in there and none of them knew
how to flush. Nothing too stinky, just a bit … meh.

I wasn’t expecting much from the pool itself. It was a
Monday night, Queen’s Park, slap bang in the middle of a toast rack of terraced
houses, changing rooms bit naff so on so on. But actually, I was … pleasantly surprised. The proportions of the room are generous, the pool is only
25m long but nicely wide; great swathes of sunny yellow tiles, windows etched
with a recurring wave, and a pine top half and ceiling in a series of V shapes.
All that wood could have looked too 70s in the wrong light, but they had it
down nice and mellow. Low key. Low level. The whole had a very nice ambience
(pronounced in an Abigails Party way). I can imagine that if they’d blasted the
place with full-on floodlights and nrg beats, it would have been a completely
different atmosphere, but tonight, they matched mood with hour exactly right. The
calm it induced soaked through to the swimmers, everyone soporifically bobbing,
voices lowered. We were the noisiest laughiest people there. We probably ruined
it for everyone else. Soz, n that.

The pool has the classic
white tile gutter arrangement, and I’m telling you this for a reason. I do love
the design and cool feel, exactly fit for purpose. However… I got in the water,
it was SO SHALLOW it was barely up to my bum. And I have short legs. Poor
Adam, considerably taller, it was practically only up to his knees. It renders the
first fifteen foot of the pool way too shallow, you could finger creep down if it wasn’t slippy. Adam’s suggestion was that the pool be filled right up past the height of the gutter, turned into an infinity pool, then it might
have been a workable depth.

Both of us had been on
swim trek hols this summer (his hot, mine fucking freezing) so spent our time
swapping the various tips different coaches had given us, to the point where I
was so overloaded with what I ‘should’ be doing I almost forgot how to swim
altogether. Adam was bemused by one swimmer until I pointed out she
had a float under her belly which is how come she so resembled a floating turtle.
Most weirdly, though, were the guys doing indoor sunbathing on green plastic loungers
arrayed at the deep end. I couldn’t work out what the hell was going on, it
looked like a weird game of swapsies. One guy came out, lay on
lounger. Surveyed pool. Second guy came out, first guy gets up, they mutter,
first guy slaps second guy on arm, goes off. Second guy lies down on lounger
and so on… Odd. Then it clicked -
and I really should have read the clues that all that pine was giving me
- they were going in and out of a
sauna at that end of the pool. Dur.

The water got a bit warm
and sneezy, it had always been a little cloudy, like poached egg water. Time to
get out. Adam padded back to luxury, me to economy class. On our way home, we decided we’d both be happy if this was
our local indoor pool; en route to the tube we spotted some tacky religious iconography, the best sort, on a couple
of terraced houses: stained glass
windows, statues, crosses Hail Mary engraved in plaster, the lot. Like Lourdes, W10. Small
pleasures.

(Funny sight of the
evening: on the entrance turnstile, a note:’Fast track entry to the gym’, right
next to an open gate.)